Updates about art stuff...

So, for an update on where I am with my art...

First off, my studio is an absolute mess. The table has, well see for yourself:

Let's just say that it's gotten a bit more cluttered :)

Here's one of the paintings that I'm working on - still very much in the beginning stages - mostly just washes to lay out the composition. I think I'll keep you all updated on its progress.

This is a lovely old box camera that I'm borrowing and using. The inner film loading mechanism seems to be rusted shut, but I can cut a piece of photo paper and use that to take a photo with. I have to click the shutter about ten times then, but it's still pretty cool. The viewfinder is on the top too, so it's a very different experience.

Here's a really bad digital image of one of the photos I took with the box camera.

And this is my lovely pinhole camera!!! I'm super excited about it - it took a lot of planning, and a lot of time to complete. And doesn't it look pretty?

Here's a view from the front, with the shutter pulled aside so you can see the pinhole. The box is from my photo teacher, and the bits of wood, etc were all things I found in the scrap heap behind the barn at the college. I was really lucky with the key - it's so lovely.

And an inside view. On the bottom you can see one of the cardboard guides I made for the photo paper, and around the inner edge of the lid are scraps of leather from the tool room to help keep the camera light tight.

And it works!!!! There are no light leaks!!!

And here is the above photo, manipulated on my computer to simulate a contact positive of the photo. I think it looks pretty cool, and I can't wait to take more photos.

The Irish Flu

Well, I guess technically it came from Germany. A couple people got sick the last day of our stay in Berlin - including our dean. It since seems to have been making its way through the college - two of my housemates, the photo teacher, and a number of others. So far I've managed to not catch it, and I hope it stays that way! Especially since this weekend we're going to take a trip to Dingle, and the weather's been so lovely I don't want to miss it.
So lots of water, oranges, and tea for me!! Everyone cross your fingers, please :D

Early Christian Sites

The Friday before our Berlin trip, we went around to a bunch of Celtic and early Christian sites. Unfortunately, the weather was horrible, so we didn't go everywhere, and didn't stay outside long at most of the sites. I did get a few pictures of some nice stone carvings, though.

The remains of an old round tower in a graveyard.

This is a devil stone - a carved stone in the doorway of a church, as a sort of ward against evil. You can see it if you look at it sideways - the head is to the left, and it's on its stomach.

A carved doorway - we think of the 12 apostles, and some extra animals.

The rest are just details of cool carvings around the doorway.

Except for this one, which is a really funny little gate that we had to go through one at a time to get onto the church grounds...

Prehistory trip

We went back to Pol na Bron, so I won't bore you with more pictures of that - I actually don't think I took any. But having our Irish Studies prof with us was really cool - he showed us a prehistoric wall/path that was still visible leading away from the dolmen (the raised/more turf covered line). It could have been used as a path of smaller stones to roll the large slabs up for the building of the dolmen. The dolmens were also used as markers of territory, so the path might have been turned into a wall as an extra marker.

It was also apparently frog season!

There was one that I got really close to - I think he might have been too scared out of his mind to move. But he was gorgeous. Oh, and neither of these pictures had my camera zoomed in - I was actually this close!!

At the next place we got off the bus, it was near a sheep field, and they all came to say hi.

This was a cairn - a specific type of burial in which the body was placed in a box, and then a large pile of small stones was created over and around it. This is actually a fairly small one, and has probably been pulled apart a bit by farmers for their walls. Some of them were HUGE, and also used as very visible markers on the tops of hills.

This was another dolmen that was in a farmer's field, only it has fallen apart, and been taken over somewhat by hazel. It was still neat, since we got to actually go up close and stand in it.

I just love the cartoon-ish feel of this hill!!

We had to cross a cow field to get to our next destination...

Which was this fantastic view. It felt so epic being on top of this hill, with the wind blowing and such a gorgeous landscape around.

A closer view of the crazy rock layers in the hill.

Our professor pretending to shut one of the students inside a large wedge tomb :D

Here you can see another prehistoric wall going sort of horizontally across the frame - we all walked along it!

This was a chamber tomb, so a different style from portal dolmens and wedge tombs. There seemed to be two chambers, as well as a front courtyard.

This was the ground that we had to walk across. Some of the little valleys are ok to step on, because it's just lower rock, or lower rock with a bit of turf on top. However, some others are turf that's growing suspended over a deeper hole in the rock. And they look almost exactly the same!!! It was an experience making it across without twisting an ankle.

This is just a really nifty glacial erratic that we saw. It and another one and the chamber tomb line up together....

Windy Hike

A couple weeks ago, on our Friday Irish Studies trip, we went on a 8km hike down the path of the only above-ground stream in the Burren. Because of the limestone pavement here, the rain goes through the porous rocks to create a series of underground streams and caves. But in this area, there's a layer of some other rock that the water has cut down to, and so flows overground to the sea. It was a lovely hike, and lots of fun. It was a really really really windy day, though - which in my opinion only made it more exciting!!

There was this giant hole in the ground that we went to first - kind of like a sinkhole, I suppose. Unfortunately it was sooo windy I had a really hard time getting a photo. I just couldn't keep the camera still enough to not blur.

Most of my photos ended up looking something like this:

We ran into a field with a bunch of cows, and since we were further in the valley, it was a bit easier to take photos - not as windy.

I love how all the cows here are so fuzzy!! They all look like they would be nice to pet. Some of them even have really curly coats like this one.

Connemara ponies!!! This one was a beauty.

It was amazing how much the river-scape changed as we walked down it towards the sea, depending on the substrate.

This photo is a little hard to see, but in the foreground are stairs that lead down to a natural spring, that was definitely used as a well, and possibly as a holy well at some point.



This is a beautiful garden that was right along the river - it's so perfectly mystical that I couldn't help taking a photo. Mom - this is what I want my garden to be like when I have a house!!



This slug was kinda gross looking, but somehow still fascinating.

There was a group of feral goats that were going up the hill away from the path. It's hard to see in this photo, but we had binoculars, and so that was fun to watch. There were a couple small kids that were super adorable, and seemed to be having such fun bounding up and down the rocky slope.

When we got down to the beach, the wind came back full force, as there were no hills to protect us. I could lean backwards into the wind much further than my natural balance would allow - it was so much fun. There's something so exhilirating about being in such strong wind!

Midterm crits are over!!!

Today marks the end of three full days of critiques.

They were three VERY long days.

Also the three most beautiful days we have had in Ireland so far.

And we were stuck inside.


Complaining aside, there were some good ideas brought up. It was definitely an experience critiquing in such a large group (forty some-odd). There were also two visiting artists, so it was fun to hear different viewpoints from people who hadn't seen any of our work before.

Unfortunately, this also means that my time in Ireland is about half over :(
I'm not sure I'm ready to be at that point yet, so hopefully the next two months won't go that quickly!